'Obama should know that sanctions are meaningless' - expert

Фото: EPA

Peter Koenig talked to the Voice of Russia about the crisis in Ukraine, the biased coverage of the Western media and the "meaningless" threats of sanctions issued by the Obama administration. Peter Koenig is an economist and former World Bank staff. He worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources.

Before we start discussing the threats issued by the Obama administration, could you share your impressions about the way the Western media covers Ukraine?

Sadly, the "presstitute" media have converted the western populace into mindless puppets, a brainwashed western population to the point of losing all sense of reality, of right and wrong; blinded to the point of screaming into the bullhorn of Washington’s Assassin in Chief.

Just to make sure that everyone understands what "presstitute" means. According to Urban Dictionary it is "A term coined by Gerald Celente and often used by independent journalists and writers in the alternative media in reference to journalists and talking heads in the mainstream media who give biased and predetermined views in favor of the government and corporations, thus neglecting their fundamental duty of reporting news impartially. It is a portmanteau of press and prostitute."

Just look at today’s article in the NYTimes on Mr. Putin’s Press conference on Ukraine! It typically portrays its utmost disdain for President Putin – "He sat alone in an armchair, alternately slouching, his legs spread wide in confidence, and squirming uncomfortably."- and – "He demonstrated his characteristically uncanny grasp of detail in such matters as natural-gas pricing, but contradicted himself at times and wandered off into obscure historical digressions."

The NYT piece goes on – "He delivered a version of the crisis that was fundamentally at odds with the view held by most officials in the United States, Europe and Ukraine."

Basically, the coverage is utterly biased and everything that doesn't fit into the Washington-approved narrative is disregarded.

Of course the true version of the crisis is at odds with the western views. They are those of stooges of Washington, who are constantly manipulated by a war-mongering corporate media, paid for by the murderously interested US military industrial complex.

The gentlemen diplomat, Mr. Putin, did not even mention how the west, driven by the US, has subverted Ukrainian democracy and organized a coup d’état . He didn’t need to. After Madame Nuland’s bragging statement that US spent more than 5 billion dollars to prepare Ukraine for ‘regime change’, made history around the world, it should be clear to every journalist present at the press conference, including the one Steven Lee Myers, who authored the biased and oozing of hatred NYT’s article.

Nevertheless, the emperor without clothes dares to rattle its toothless sabers. Their numbed minds can’t imagine a reverse scenario, say Russia destabilizing Mexico in the emperor’s ‘backyard’ (as Obama is infamously known to call Latin America), to install a puppet government of their liking. – Imagine!

Let's talk about sanctions. The US threatened to kick Russia out of the G8 and introduce trade sanctions. Will those sanctions hurt Russia?

Mr. Obama, himself a puppet of Corporate America, should know that in reality threats of sanctions, like ‘we are not coming to the G-8 summit in Sochi’, or ‘we will confiscate Russian assets in the US’, or ‘ we will discontinue talks on trade’ – are meaningless. Russia does not need the Western economy. Period.

That's a very strong statement. Could you elaborate?

Russia in solidarity and alliance with China has all the trumps in its court. – Europe depends up to 40% on gas supplied from Russia, of which 80% passes through Ukraine. China holds about 1.6 trillion dollars of US debt they could drop and annihilate the US economy. Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa ( the BRICS ) have almost 50% of the planet’s population and about one third of the world’s GDP and therefore are self-sufficient and do not need the Anglo-Saxon led all-aggressive and war-ready Occident. They are about prepared to launch their own common currency – a solid alternative to the "mickey-mouse dollar".

You're saying that the self-sufficiency of the non-western world is reason enough to ignore the threats coming from Washington.

Who cares about American sanctions? Nobody needs the hollow US economy whose only sustenance is constant wars. Not even the European puppets are dependent on it. Of course, the yes-saying, head-bowing corrupt and coward EU leaders are dreaming of collecting some crumbs of the empire’s loot.

Does Russia and its allies have a way of retaliating?

Sanctions could easily come the other way and eventually they will, salvaging the globe’s enslaved populations. The BRICS can issue their own currency, a sound and solid basket of their countries money. It is likely to be adopted by all those who are striving to associate with the BRICS, among them many energy producers. So, a new reserve currency, a solid alternative for the debt ridden worthless US dollar will emerge. The BRICS and associates have a lready shed the dollar as currency of reference for international treaties, using instead their own national money and that has angered Washington.

At the international Energy summit last fall in South Korea, Russia’s representative has announced trading hydrocarbons in the near future in the countries’ own currencies, decoupling petrol and gas from the dollar. Many hydrocarbon producers today are just waiting for that day to come. Imagine what that would mean for the US dollar! The corporate presstitute media is silent about these developments to protect the false prestige of the decaying empire. But truth will prevail.

Back to Ukraine. What is your view on Russia's intervention?

Isn’t a Russian intervention for its own national security (using America’s all justifying notorious slogan) protection from the Western installed fascist government a logical step? If the people of Ukraine have not yet realized what economic mayhem would await them becoming a close ally of Europe, they may just look to Greece, where IMF and EU imposed privatization of public services and a burden of debt have turned the population into lasting enslavement.

There are people who still believe that Ukraine will be better off under IMF administration.

In Ukraine, a devastating free trade agreement (sic) with the EU, a burden of the IMF/EU imposed debt to ‘restructure’ its economy, privatization and massive unemployment would create an economic and social disaster. If the people of Ukraine would see this coming, they would forever be grateful for Russian intervention. Look at Greece as an example. It is not only that the IMF and Germany have already encouraged Greece to ‘privatize’ its islands. Now, under the dictate of the same IMF, international mining companies are allowed using confiscating peasants’ land without compensation to suck the country empty of its remaining natural resources, under the pretext of Greece amortizing the ECB, EC and IMF imposed debt. As a side effect the mines will pollute surface and groundwater as well as the rich Aegean Sea, so that fishermen too will lose their livelihood.

That’s the world we are living in. Ukraine better take note before it is too late – before they submit to the pillage by the elite of the One World Order.

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